Menu

Category Archives: Needlework

The second part of my craft exchange gift from earlier this year was a cross-stitched climber that I designed. The girl who the gift was for is a beer lover and also a climber. I made the painted beer plaque for her using a custom-designed vinyl reverse stencil I made with my Silhouette, and, since I have Craft ADD, I decided to totally switch it up and do a cross-stitch design. I couldn’t find anything on Etsy that was exactly what I was looking for, but I did see a pretty cool climber t-shirt on Zazzle:

That inspired me to create my own cross-stitch design. I dug out the little graph paper journal I found on clearance at Target last year and tried my hand for the first time at creating my own cross-stitch design. I knew that I wanted to do something small (that could fit in a 4×6 frame), so I figured it wouldn’t be too hard. And it really wasn’t!

My first attempt was OK – but it wasn’t great. I thought I could do better. I googled rock climber and found this picture:

I liked the look of it and thought it shouldn’t be too hard to “8-bit-ify” into a cross-stitch design. I was surprised with how well I thought it turned out!

So, the second attempt was what I went with. I used an online calculator to figure out that my finished design would be 3″ wide by 4″ high – perfect! I went to work stitching and I was pretty happy with how it turned out!

It’s not perfect – I mean, none of my crafts are – but I think it’s pretty cute. I like the motion that I think I captured in the image – for reference, this is the rock climber photo I modeled my design after:

Here is my second ever embroidery project – I did this one in March 2011, just a couple of weeks after I did my “Lucky” project. I LOVE this and I love the idea that I had to do a series of these cute and literal interpretations of Beatles songs. Oh, something you should know about me: huge Beatles fan. I *will* Get Back (ha! See what I did there?) to doing this series!

My second embroidery attempt – a cute but literal interpretation of a Beatles song. I *will* do a series of these some day!

I originally posted this project on my personal blog in February of 2011. February is National Embroidery Month and I was so inspired by all of the embroidery tutorials I kept seeing around the web, that I was inspired to try it out myself.

My very first embroidery project. I did this at a low point in my life when I thought I’d never get pregnant. I ended up using this as a focal point during labor almost a year later!

About Ali

I'm a mom to a gorgeous little guy named Max. I work outside the home full time, but in my "spare" time I love learning and am always working on projects that let me broaden my knowledge of sewing, photography, and any number of things that pique my interest!